In-orbit Radiation Damage Characterization of SiPMs in the GRID-02 CubeSat Detector

Abstract

Recently, silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs) have been used in several space-borne missions, owing to their solid state, compact size, low operating voltage, and insensitivity to magnetic fields. However, operating SiPMs in space results in radiation damage and degraded performance. In-orbit quantitative studies on these effects are limited. In this study, we present in-orbit SiPM characterization results obtained by the second detector of the Gamma-Ray Integrated Detectors (GRID-02), which was launched on 6 November 2020. An increase in dark current of $\sim$100 $\mu$A/year per SiPM chip (model MicroFJ-60035-TSV) at 28.5 V and 5 ${}^{\circ }$C was observed. Consequently, the overall noise level (sigma) of the GRID-02 detector increased by $\sim$7.5 keV/year. The estimate of this increase is $\sim$40 $\mu$A/year per SiPM chip at -20 ${}^{\circ }$C, highlighting the positive effect of using a cooling system.

final manuscript, 20 pages, 8 figures, published on NIM-A

References in corpus (6)

• HERMES: An ultra-wide band X and gamma-ray transient monitor on board a nano-satellite constellation
• Compact CubeSat Gamma-Ray Detector for GRID Mission
• Radiation Damage Study of SensL J-Series Silicon Photomultipliers Using 101.4 MeV Protons
• On-ground calibrations of the GRID-02 gamma-ray detector
• GRBAlpha: A 1U CubeSat mission for validating timing-based gamma-ray burst localization
• The design and performance of CUBES -- a CubeSat X-ray detector

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Temperature dependence of radiation damage annealing of Silicon Photomultipliers
• CubeSats for Gamma-Ray Astronomy
• Characterization of SiPM Performance in a Small Satellite in Low Earth Orbit using LabOSat-01
• Measuring the Cosmic X-ray Background accurately
• Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimetry with the COMCUBE-S CubeSat Swarm -- Design and Performance Simulations
• Characterization of more than three years of in-orbit radiation damage of SiPMs on GRBAlpha and VZLUSAT-2 CubeSats
• Lowering the Energy Threshold using a Plastic Scintillator and Radiation-Damaged SiPMs